Walking in the Shadows AVAILABLE NOW

Hi everyone–I hope you are all safe. We were released early from work, so I am posting this quickly before we lose power. Walking in the Shadows has been released early due to the storm. The ebook is available for $3.99 on Barnes and Noble, and Amazon, the paperback is available from Amazon for $12.99. The signed copy is available from my Etsy store.

BN: CLICK HERE

Amazon ebook: CLICK HERE

Amazon paperback: CLICK HERE

Esty Signed Novel: CLICK HERE

SONG: Existence

ARTIST: August Burns Red

GENRE: Metalcore

LYRICS:

This hollow feeling, the knowledge that you exist

Amidst your insecurities, cover up only to coward out

And never shutting up only to never speak aloud

Have you dried up entirely?
The walls of a church don’t make it holy

It’s what’s authentic that completes the sum of it’s parts

Don’t excuse yourself from life today on the pretense of your past
You’re hurt, you’re broken, that’s alright

This might be what it takes to wake you up

This might be what it takes to wake you up
Are you at your wits end yet?

Are you at your wits end yet?

Are you at your wits end?

Are you at your wits end yet?
The walls of a church don’t make it holy

Security isn’t glitzy or glamorous, concrete or cohesive

Therein lies the truth, lift your head up high
It’s what we know we aren’t that makes us who we are

It’s what we know we aren’t that makes us who we are
You’re hurt, you’re broken, that’s alright

That makes us who we are

You’re hurt, you’re broken, that’s alright

That makes us who we are

 

ANALYSIS: As you can tell by these lyrics, as I’ve said before, this band is more than just musicians–they are amazing poets and writers. I love these lyrics, and they helped me get through the time when I first started writing again. I was still doubting who I was as a person and where my career would bring me. I actually hung the saying up at my cubicle ” It’s what we know we aren’t that makes us who we are.”. It helped me to clear my mind and be able to say I was a writer. I wasn’t published yet, but I was a writer, and I am a writer. I know who I am not, and that is better than knowing exactly who you are.

Onto the scene, Knightley has just finished the unit on Shakespeare and overhears a comment about the fact that some of his students merely took his class to stare at him. This really bugs him, and he uses Vera’s love of metal music to show exactly what the point of the Shakespeare lesson was, but he also teaches a life lesson to his students. Now, it’s questionable that any of them listened– except Vera, of course!

~~~

 “Ugh…I seriously hated that Shakespeare crap Knightley made us read. I don’t even want to know what he’s going to torture us with next. I would never have taken this class had I known it would be like this,” Lily remarked as she walked past, and I knew Tad had heard because he had stopped, his muscles stiff in agitation.

“Yeah, Lil, but come on—eye candy!” her friend retorted.

“You know Mr. Knightley has ears, right?” I shot at them as I tried to put on my best mean girl face.

Lily blushed, and I watched as Tad’s shoulders relaxed with silent laughter. I knew however, that Tad would not just ignore what Lily had said. When the class had filled, he clapped his hands and held them together with pause before speaking. “I’d like to thank Lily and her friend for the comment on my good looks, but apparently my teaching isn’t as interesting. Yet, somehow I think you might want to pay attention in class today,” he said, and the class burst into laughter but grew silent at his serious face as he continued, “So we did that fun music assignment at the beginning of the school year.” Tad pointed towards me. “Vera, what were you listening to this morning when you drove in? I could hear it from here.”

I smiled. “August Burns Red.”

“I believe the song was Existence?”

“You’d be right.”

“Seriously, hot,” the kid in the front row commented, and Tad kicked his desk.

“Do you have the song on you right now?” Tad asked.

“Yes.”

“Would you mind playing it? And writing the lyrics along with it?” Tad pulled the speakers from his desk drawer, and I stood to go to the front of the room. I knew what he was doing and wrote a quote on the board before I handed Tad my cell phone. As our hands touched butterflies erupted in my stomach. “How many of you actually understood the songs that some chose that were metal? And did you instantly decide it was angry and tune it out?” he asked as he hit play and some of the girls in the room tried not to cringe. I turned my back to them and began to write the words of the song. When the song finished Tad let the words sink in. “’In our prejudice may we find understanding that dissuades hate and forms love.’ Vera, you could not have put it better. Do the rest of you now understand? Do you feel the same as you did at first, or do you see what Vera meant by her quote?” he continued to question as he handed me my phone and nodded for me to go sit back down. “This kind of music resembles what we just finished studying—with the fact that if you don’t understand Shakespeare you will hate it.” His eyes found Lily, who sunk further in her chair. “This hate also predisposes some to not trying to understand. But if you only try, you will finally hear the words for what they are.”

Writing, Teaching, Music & the Loss

It’s that time of the week again–Music Monday and as promised there will be a sneak peek into a scene from Walking in the Shadows, which will be available 9 days. Wow, it’s getting close!

For today’s scene Knightley is going to get himself in hot water again. Why? As a teacher he believes that despite what it might do to him, he needs to do what is best for his students and this includes Vera. Knightley is a good teacher, the reason why? I believe a good teacher needs to abstain from arrogance, a teacher who believes they know everything,especially a literature teacher, is driving themselves into a hole in my experience, and what is much worse? They drive their students into the ground. I was one of those students. A good teacher realizes that they can learn from all of those around them, including their students. Knightley yearns to not only teach but also to be taught. If nothing else, one can learn about human nature. My reason for this thinking is simple, each and every one of us is different; we each bring a different experience to the table. An English teacher, in my mind, is a teacher of literature, a teacher of writing and a teacher of life. We read writing, we learn writing, writing teaches us about life. In it’s function writing is mechanical (put commas here, never start a sentence with and or but), but in it’s being it is far from mechanical; writing is emotional. It’s often emotionally driven, even the boring technical writing is driven by some sort of experience, which is very often driven by emotion. I wrote procedures for the bank I work for, and I put a little bit of me and my writing style in each of them. It was technical, but it was still emotionally driven by my need for perfection and the want to teach and make the processes easier to understand. Now, Knightley often finds himself in hot water because of his want to teach. In his lesson that we will see today, he is trying to teach his students how writing can help them deal with the emotions of every day life. He does have motives in this. He is trying, most of all, to help Vera deal with the things she has not. She admits to him that she used to write, but that she hasn’t since her parents died. That’s when he knows what he must do, even though it could very well eat him up inside–and oh, does it. He asks each of the students to write a poem, and then he shuffles them and each is read randomly and anonymously–poetry being as subjective as it is, everyone who participates receives an A. Knightley participates because he feels that his students should not have to do something he himself would not be willing to do. Under some sort of odd circumstance–AKA me, Knightley gets Vera’s poem at random. He knows it’s hers when he begins reading it and each word is a knife twisting into his soul:

“Now make sure the one you have isn’t yours…Are we all set?” He held up the paper he had in his hand. “Should I start?” His eyes landed on the paper and then found mine. He swallowed before opening his mouth to speak, but thought better of it and sat on his desk. I could see his hands shaking on the piece of paper as everyone waited for him to speak. He pulled on his tie and said, “There’s no title on this, so I’ll just begin to read.

‘All that guides me is fear,

And all that finds me is loss

Death defines which paths I cross

It is within the shadows that I stumble

And I am desperate without a voice

Here I am threatened by the resolve that you are

my soul

But if my lies are the path that I have to wander

because there is no choice

Will you love me still?

In the darkness of the night when I wish to do

nothing more than take flight?

Will you hold me to this plane and ease the

suffering and pain?

When all you know is the truth

And all they see is the lies

Will I be the one you find, or the one you leave

behind?

Alone may be the only home I shall find.’”

When Tad finished his jaw was clenched with his eyes staring at the piece of paper and one hand holding the side of his desk so tight that his knuckles were white.

“Are you okay, Mr. Knightley?” Jaz asked as everyone leaned back in their seats in surprise. “Mr. Knightley?”

“Knightley,” I spoke, and his eyes looked up and found mine while the rest of the classroom stared at me in surprise for using just the surname. “They’re just words.”

“You know that’s not true, Vera!” he hissed.

Now, to the song for today:

SONG: Stay Small

ARTIST: The Receiving End of Sirens

CD:The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi

GENRE: Experimental rock, Post-hardcore, Ambient

LYRICS:

Son, I’m sorry for this world,
And all the awful things she’ll do to you.
If you only knew what you’d endure before you were born,
I haven’t got a single doubt,
You would have not come out,
And I would have known it was for the better.

You’ll be raped of any evidence,
Of ever owning any innocence.
This culture’s a vulture,
And your prime candidate for prey.
I’ve learned that I will lose all that I’ve ever loved one day,
But I never thought I’d ever have to watch it all go,
Or wish it all away.

I know you”ll grow,
But I wish I knew you’d stay small if I said so.
Please just don’t grow.
Please just don’t grow.
Stay small.
Won’t you stay small?

Daddy’s little girl met the world,
I watched the devil do his work.
If only she knew just how sorry I was for her.
I found not a single prayer,
Could save my daughter from despair,
As long as she stayed in love with this place.

It’s because I truly love her,
That I wish to take back the sperm,
That brought her here in the first place.
Little did I know when the egg met the semen,
That my new baby girl,
Like her dad would dance with demons.

We watch the devil do his work in us.
I watch the devil do his work.

ANALYSIS: Okay, to say the least some of these lyrics are well, blunt. To be honest with you, I thought it said “I wish to take back the world” and the other part I thought it was something about man…Well, now I’ve learned something. At any rate, I think this fits the situation well, in the fact that had Vera’s parents known what would have happened they wouldn’t have wished it to. I do think that the lyrics are too severe and pessimistic. Maybe I lack the understanding because I am not a parent, but I couldn’t agree with removing the life. I’ve had some pretty crappy stuff happen in my life, but as bad as it was, I would not take it back. It makes me who I am today, and I am proud of who I am. I’m sure my parents are reading this, and they know to what I refer. I would honestly be a bit angry if they felt the way this song does. It’s too extreme, of course, no one wishes demons on their children, but it is an unfortunate part of life. Is life still worth living, of producing? Yes, I believe it is.

“You might face your demons, but I’ll closet mine.”

It’s something Vera says, but it’s something I thought. Demons make us human, and demons can make us angels.